Places I Forget Exist (by sarah)

Yesterday as we went to take Mary to a friends birthday, we pulled up to part in Gloucester but the bits around were we normally park where full so he tried to pull down to the bit that always has parking. I feel a slick in my mind, it is an unpleasant sensation - I do not want to go there. It is a silly feeling so I am quiet we are only parking.

Mary on the other hand starts wailing, "I don't like it here!!!!"

Without thinking I say, "yeah Mary I don't like it here either." Al turns around and drives the little way up where a space is now avaliable where we'd originonally looked - lit a on the same street.

As he is turning he mutters, "yes I know why that is."

I go, "er?"

"For many it was the last place they saw."

And then I remember... there was a house there once, but it is gone because a couple where enticing kids/young people in and killing them and hiding the bodies.

Now I knew this because it came up last year when a similar thing happened but I had blocked it out. I kind of forget this bit of Gloucester exists.

So I never looked up where the family lived but I knew about them and when we were buying our house I told Al to make sure that we didn't buy somewhere they had been. That was pretty much my only proviso with buying a house.

Where the house was is a short cut, I spent almost a decade here not knowing that that was where the house had been. But I had somehow also spent most of a decade not using the short cut or venturing anywhere near there. If I think about it, it is just a shadow there in my mind, not a place, a thick greasy shadow.

Not long after the head injury Al also tried to park there but I got really distressed, it was just us, he asked what was wrong and I told him it felt wrong. A sense of immense danger loomed at me from that bit. That was when I found out where it was.

It is a silly thing I feel and I tried to ignore it. So there was another time we parked there - this was the point at which Mary freaked us both out. She did not get upset and cry like this time, she was younger... instead she pointed and said, "I remember this place! This is where I died! Before when I had a brother."

Now at the time she was always saying such things but always in uncanny situations so like she'd point to a building site we'd walk past to go to the Climbing Wall and she'd say, "My dad and brother are buried there, they died a loooooooooong time ago." This was the same dad and brother she insisted where on the fresco thing on the same streety bit. It shows Romans fighting. Turns out that whilst they were building they found about 200 Roman bodies.

Friends who have taken Mary out have commented on the fact she says these things and she says them in away that makes your stomach drop, she is so sincere and it sounds true.

No I am not saying we a psycic, we are scientists but being scientists I also what to get to the bottom of the miraide of ghost stories and unexplainables we have.

So I posit that local people all know what happened there, and I knew it was somewhere in Gloucester, peoples body language would tell me that something was wrong. My brain rejestered it as a "bad" place and we are social animals, we learn from each other. I then passed this on to Mary who is incredibly sensitive to how tense I am. I forget that that bit of Gloucester exists because lets face it as a teen it was one of the worst nightmares because it could happen to you and as a parent it is a worst nightmare because you have to let your kids grow up and that means it might happen to them... and though it is low probability that area of Gloucester proves that it can and did happen and it is horrible.

However, it is also not the strongest (nor the weakest) of these sorts of reactions I have to places. I don't normally tell people because... well I went to Imperial College and discovered in my first year that people laugh at you when you tell them about your near death experiences. So you don't mention the road you don't take because it just never occurred to you and that when you followed everybody else it seemed wrong and slow, like the air and shadows where pulling at you. When trying to push yourself through the stupidness coming home late from the Student Union in your second first year you see a Woman in big heavy dress, you see a woman but she has no colour and she is sad, just so sad and scared and you run... around the block to get to the door that was just the other side of the woman looking at you.

Panting you cave and tell a fellow housemate who is like, "yeah the victorian lady, my mum's a medium don't tell anyone. I researched it and I think she's a Ripper victim." Then another house mate appeared, he didn't like being in his room alone, he was worried... turns out he kept seeing a woman in some sort of filly old formal nightgown in the garden from his window. When we looked it was the other side to where I'd been so if a real person had been standing there we would have both seen them.

I'm blaming mass hysteria for this one, because we used to sit and talk about ghosts and magik and all the taboo things in the science world late into the night.

Then there was the way back to Alaric's flat in Ealing, it was like hitting a wall of dense air, (in Kenya I found there was a name for such things and they were thought to fire/sand demons? because yes me and another girl had a terrifying experience which I think was actually a natural phenominia of a warm air vortex causing air pressure changes resulting in us being trapped in different rooms, a scary noise and the doors refusing to open - this would also fit with the locals description of what the demons where). It was a short piece of path, but to me it felt like something jumped on my back and was weighing me down, like the shadows were pawing and dragging at me.

In the end I caved and asked if we walk the other longer way, through the scary alley way. That was when I found he didn't like the same bit of road, that he always felt watched there and that it somehow seemed to take forever to walk that one small bit.

Then I saw an Elephant, a white elephant but I am not sure now if it was late night or a dream, I told Al, "when ever we get to this road and look at that tree I can't help but imagine an elephant here!"

Turns out there is an actual elephant buried there - WTF??! No seriously in London there is an elephant buried. I must have over heard something about it in a pub or something. Still no idea what was going on with that stretch of road.

I could go on, I feel I should write them down, they make good stories but I think they are also important for understanding how the human mind works, how we pick up ideas for each other and also - as a good scientist I have an open mind, I think it unlikely that I've been seeing ghosts but I don't think it's impossible, but even if it is impossible I and many others are seeing, hearing and feeling things so what is actually going on? If we don't share our accounts for fear of being seen as nutters then we as a species will never get to the bottom of what is going on.

And so I am going to share with you the most powerful experience of this kind I've had as a grown up, dubbed The Marble Arch Incident.

I went off to university with plans to see all the landmarks and museums I could... I found money and time where a barrier but I still motored my way through a fair few. One which was right there, one which everyone else went to and I somehow had just avoided including taking longer to get to places was... Marble Arch. I did not do this knowingly but I managed it.

As some of you know Alaric had an uncoventional upbringing with this sort of stuff, his dad is Chaos Magician and his mother was heavily into the Occult. Issue I had at the time was trying to be a good scientist but having come from a Christian background that believes in mediums and ghosts and fortune telling as well I was very edgy about occult things. But people I met at parties would come up to me and just announce I was psycic or a seer and so on.

Alaric observed this. Alaric is a scientist (though his degrees engineering). Alaric decides to run an experiment on his new girlfriend. Alaric is a git.

From conversations with his friends he decided Marble Arch would be a good test. I knew nothing about this but wonder if I picked it up via his body language.

Anyway, we are out on one of our little explores - Marble Arch. I didn't like the area but didn't want to ruin things, we went through a tunnel, I got sick, he had to help me walk. I was being crushed, like the pressure above me and increased drastically, despair, so much despair and cruelty, it seemed to stretch up and up and up and all of it was pouring onto me and it made me ill, Al thought I passing out. Maybe this was just my first migraine because yeah I have migraines now.

But the key factor for his experiment was that the point this happened was where the Tyburn Gallows had been. It was the point at which many many people had died, executed and jeered, I've never been back.

So not particullarly impressive ghost stories because it's not really about ghosts - what's frustrating me is that I kind of loose places. Like that bit of Gloucester, like marble arch and so on. My mind edits them out as if I am a sat nav with a very specific setting.

The Hackspace Grand Opening (by sarah)

Those of you who follow me on various social media will have seen the photos of Cheltenham Hackspace new premises being spruced up and that is because tomorrow (well today now!) is the grand opening 😀

Sunday 4th of December - if you are local then please pop along - hackspaces or createspaces are made by and for the community and we'd love to meet you 🙂

I'll be taking along steam punk and textile stuff to be working on and have plenty of spare so others can have a go! There is plenty to see and people to talk to and skill share with 🙂

Also I have been making craft videos for Advent as it turns out it is the tenth Christmas of Salaric Crafts How To Blog!!!

Of course I only have 2 vids up and it is now technically day 4 - annoyingly obsolete laptop is obsolete and is being a pain in the backside but I shall continue limping along with it and hopefully get the other two vids to you some time tomorrow!

I also have a craft fayre Monday at the Costa Coffee on Metz Way in Gloucester 🙂 Mainly taking Wiggly Pet Press stuff with a bit of Steam Punk etc...

On This Night (by sarah)

Like with Brexit I kept saying it was going to happen and people said it couldn't but it did and it's pretty scary - there is a smarmy rapey, racist homophobe who lies and cheats and looses billions of dollars and bales himself out from charities he's supposed to run and HE got into the White House. A man who throws tantrums is in charge of what I think (but maybe wrong) is the larges arsenal of nukes in the world.

This is scary and heart breaking and obviously anyone who who's looked at history can not help but see the similarities as we go round the cycle of violence once more. Of course this is playing havoc with my near near future dystopia series - the Punk's Universe I have been working on for getting on for a decade and some of which actually dates back to when I was like 14!!! ie the 90's!

The current books are near future but it is supposed to be an alternative history thing... this is the Facebook post I whacked out on it last night:

SO when I was planning my zombie quintette based in the Punk Universe I researched various things - one of the stories follows an apocalyptic cult (I made up) they consider themselves to be a direct line via mothers back to Fatima Mohammed's daughter - they are awaiting zombies and the falling dead of the faithful brought about by a pink/orange devil who gets mistaken for the 2nd coming (I think it was 2nd anyway) main issue is the description of the saviour is also of someone with skin and hair of fire... so in my story I chose a Trump faximial and a red headed half celt half arab who takes after his father in looks and has the red blush face is a muslim and one of the heros though the lesbian mother of his child is the main protag. Considering events that I had pre-empting the Z-times were Britain leaving the EU, Trump becoming president, food banks etc.... getting hit by dirty russian radio isoptopes and a targeted terror attack that wipes out the police et al ready for security corp take over - then there is a 5 way zomb-apoc with disease, drugs, mind control and rocks from space.... resulting in humans mainly living on sea steds. I'm kind of a little concerned that perhaps I should stop writing as it's getting all fooo and wooo and did I mention Essex gets flooded due the ice caps melting and the barrier failing... (and yes I did nick alot of it straight out of the dreams I had whilst sparked out from head injury but the main story line events have been in place for almost a decade now I just did not know the details!)

I also wrote a poem because as the news poured in and people started looking at the date and a) it is the mirror date for the terror attacks on the US 9/11 in the US date writing system verses the 11/9 - of course in the UK it was a 9/11... for numerologists and others who do fortune telling this would seem very important and not a good sign. Then the date analysis began to poor in, coincidence and serendipity reigned - 27 years since the Berlin Wall came down - a symbol of oppression, division and what we thought of as the last echo of the consequences of the second world war.

Then it turned out to be the anniversary of Kristallnacht - of the Night of Broken Glass when the Germans raided, vandalised and murdered focusing on the jewish population in their midst. For me this is one of the scarier and more profound dates and marked a turning of events, it marked the beginning of the escalations that lead directly to the death camps and the horrors of war.

Of course as the day progressed more and more dates where thrown into the mix - many Nazi related and though any given date can offer up the same sort of profound relatedness it does set an uneasiness in the heart.

I watched my social media fed in fascinated horror as my side - the "good side" began to undo themselves with shouts of breaking democracy and calls for assassination - and yes most where in jest and if I had a crystal ball or sure way of divining the future then perhaps we could say... yes this is the thing to be done - but we don't so it is just murder and vigilantism and a whole new pandoras box. It also marks a deepening of the divide, as our societies globally become more and more dipoled and that skism is far more dangerous than the buffoonery of politics. They only have the power we give them...

And the apathetic grow - "BORED" of politics - mainly because most people of my gen have never seen anything they've voted for happen. Out numbered and powerless feeling there are two options for the stability of mind - switch it off - politics like the weather is something you can not change if you are working or middle class or become an activist. This too grooves the trenches of the divide wider - interestingly people are not dividing along traditional lines which will need further analysis.

Me and Alaric got heavily grilled by confused 11 yr old girls puzzled as to how someone like Trump could even be considered for leader. I fear for the kids future but have to hope that the US have fail safes in their system (how long before he's impeached?).

What really really sickened me though was a report that our government is considering alining with the US and Russia!!! My god just no... are they looking at the same world I am?

US is playing the Germany of the 30's, we're the Italy and Russia gets to play itself - I wonder who's going to play the part of Japan. And I hope I'm wrong, I hope I'm over reacting. As I said with the Brexit stuff I want to be wrong... for all our sakes :/

Anyway - me being me I wrote a poem:

On The Night

In between wired breaths my lungs choke and spume
Thoughts of ire lost within as I await the gloom
The nights are rolling in once more
This night is a special one for sure
For there an egg of hope was laid
For there an egg of chance was bade

Shell fragments rained in a cascade
As the dreams of life began to fade a
Delirium of life’s serum a sugary syrup coat
Scattered as fine powder residue with one large fragment
Upside down an opalescent boat
Toppled and teetering it was drawn and consumed within
Glittering in the palp and puss of the albumin

Revealing sticky and congealed
A sickly man who’s heart with the heat of hate has filled
He sits enthroned in eagles glory
Adjusting and changing and faking the story
Too tell of things how he sees fit
And the knives and glass shards stick
In the coagulated mess of a hashed meal
Half assed, half done, half baked
And smashed for an omelette for some body builders sake

Shackles move about my wrists and the memories I was spared
Spear me through the heart from generational despair
When faith was used to justify the means
When the mean broke the night with shattered screams
When blood pooled in shallow graves
In those days
In those ways
And people laughed at those who dared to cry
When people win their freedom or when people die
And the cycle spins and on this night on this night

A breaking down of a wall a breaking of a wall
A wall... he with his crown of arian hue
Marks him proud and true, as if his blood is cleaner than mine
As if he is divine
He would build a wall
Build a wall of hate and I fear the mortar and the foundations
For we have been this way before
We know what’s in store as buildings on bone footings rise
In death stained apocalypse skies

They say these are dangerous times
Or interesting depending on where you fall
but the danger is for one and all
Fall out - is fall out - where ever it falls
And the nukes are nestled waiting and staid
Waiting and waiting there are dues to be paid
And Jews or muslims or... who ever to raid
because they are designated “bad guy”.... they...
They look different... they speak different... they wear differences... they...
Monster... other
Smother and crack down
In the pound
Out the pound
Loose the pound
Gold teeth are melted down
Shhhhh the hiss of gas is the only sound

And when midnight comes there is no reprieve
But amnesties day is coming...
Holocaust memorials strengthened against crumbling
Remembrance of the suffering
Marked and marked and marked
Show the long shadow for this is it
trying to solidify on the fears
To grow strong on the tears
To be multi headed python a hydra that sets it scores
Dividing us by our flaws

But remember they are people like us,
With hopes and memories shared by us,
A part of us, Who are us
Remember the battles fought and don’t sink the stone
Of blood letting and pain
The tide has turned but that does not mean it can not turn it back again
With love, with hope
With each little gesture we make

They are coming from the recesses of collective nightmares
Militia, curfews and a heady clown
One show to rule them
Entertain and bind
Humanity is only skin deep for most
Peer to peer to peer they are kept in check
The harsh the barbarous and savage lurks
In all
And to that nature he has called
Prepare yourself for in the end
The greatest enemy of all is self
Selfish self absorbed self
Do not leave your compassion on a shelf
The need grows

Love and love and love is how it should always go
For assassinations call makes you mirror him
Strengthening that which you hate with underpins
Creating idols, myths and martyrs,
Figure heads of examples to follow for starters
Beliefs to bellow and entrench yourself in
In the tomb
Hoping heaven has enough room
Something you’ll fight to the death fore
Something that gives people their core

In between wired breaths my lungs choke and spume
Thoughts of ire lost within as I await the doom
The nights are rolling in once more
This night’s a special one for sure
For an egg of hope is laid
For an egg of chance is bade

Remember second chances are rare
Of third chances....
Please take a care.

Fun Palaces Gloucester (by sarah)

Sunday was the first ever Fun Palaces weekend in Gloucester with events all over the UK. The event in Gloucester was organised by the accessible theatre company Two Can run by Nickie Wildin.

I was pointed in the direction of Fun Palaces by a mutual friend as it's ethos is similar to the Cuddly Science (my puppets and sci-craft activities) mission statement - Science for All and the idea that everyone should and can be part of science, art, music, sport = culture.

As a grass root, community driven event it needed contributors so we took the Puppets and did Cuddly Science and junk modelling and I did a poetry set.

Alaric helped with bunting and the girls did a lot of colouring!

There was a wide range of people who came along and took part which is absolutely ace as part of the issue I have is our society is increasingly segmented meaning people find it hard to relate to others as they have never had interactions with people who are different to them.

This included Phillip who sleeps in shop doorway most nights and who was excited to help decorate his home as we stuck the artworks up in the window. Mary decided he was her new best friend and cried when he left.

The space itself ie the shop was donated and the furniture for workshops was loaned from the community enterprise The Furniture Recycling Project.

Ada Lovelace the puppet came out and even did a few little jigs on the street to let people know we were there! Also it is coming up to Ada Lovelace Day again so it was good to let people know about Ada!

The puppets and sci-craft help engage people who have a tendency to be scared of science and is part of how I break down barriers but my workshops are also flexible so I also did general junk modelling and spoke to people about junk art and upcycling - I even have a booklet on the stuff I've written now!

Some truly amazing pieces came out of the workshop from tweeting pop out birds...

To fire breathing dragons and thanks to Mary lots and lots of night vision goggles!

Running workshops is exhausting but fun and everyone seemed to really be enjoying themselves 🙂

We also got to promote the Cheltenham Hackspace as there was a skills exchange board, Jean also kept trying to put my on it to teach stuff like knitting! People were asking about the Hackspace and I found several people had initiatives that could do with junk modelling, comic book creating or cuddly science 🙂 So it was really kind of epic for us!

Then there was the bingo! With Beryl 😀

Turns out I suck at bingo but the lady who won one of my Love: A Stranger Dream candles loved it and Phillip won the cake and then insisted on sharing it with us all. It was an epic cake I am kind of sad I failed to get a photo of it!

Two ladies from Gloucester Cathedral came along to tell us about the projects that are and will be happening there including letting people know about their breakfast club and that they are getting solar panels!

I love the Cathedral space so it was great to hear about things especially how they are planning on turning the front bit into a community garden.

They had also bought with them pictures of stained glass windows and some of the green men carvings for colouring in which went down well with everybody but especially with Mary 🙂

Then it was Spoken Word time - I opened the set with my visual poem and narrative piece Reclaim the City which is part of my Found Poems of the Concrete series. People seemed to like it - I went for the Gloucester theme rather than Fun or Palaces.

I had made booklets for everybody to take away with them as it relies on the images and also I know I personally find it hard to recall stuff when you get bombarded with a lot of cool new things - so it is there for people to look at later if they wish.

Of course I then made the audience participate in Windy Gloucestershire which I was going to read but kind of transposed into singing without me actually noticing!

I also did Summer Sun another song-poem but this time I did do the spoken version. Jean took some photos the one above of Al and the one below of the poet from Food for Thought which is a poetry night that happens at Cafe Rene.

Then we had the brilliant Donna Williams who is a sign poet, in Donna's case she uses British Sign Language or BSL. Sign language is something I've struggled with since the head injury - according to my kids I used to sign nursery rhymes and things for them and my husband says I was quiet militant about this incase any of them ended up with hearing problems like I had as a child, I wanted them to be able to communicate - because not being able to communicate is the MOST frustrating thing. My mum says the main issue is that I knew the rudimentary of 3 different sign language systems, enough to help in classrooms and when I used help her at the day centre but I was not proficient as it were, and now I've got all three of them all muddled up in my head.

Interestingly I understood what was being signed but would not have been able to sign back at all. And also Donna did run through what some of the sings meant as well as vocalising some of the poems.

Mary's favourite was about cats 🙂 I did video it but have since found a better recording on Youtube.

I have written about sign poetry before including here, though interestingly I can't find the stuff about the American poet who started my interest. I am wondering if it was in an essay for my PGCert or something.

Donna was lovely and I think I've seen her/met her before but I am still really struggling with face recognition at the moment! To the point that I could not work out who Nickie (the lady who had organised the event!) was when I arrived.

Twitter @DeafFirefly

Mary loved the event and Phillip so much that she had a melt down when it came time to pack up and leave. (And I mean melt down)

It was an amazing day and I hope we get to do it again next year. I met lots more creatives and found out about stuff in Gloucester - this is something I suck at - I will end up going off to Swindon, Bristol, Brum, London etc... and then finding out that there was a big culture spoken word, art etc... thing happening round the corner but only AFTER it has been and gone!

One last thing the decor of the shop was fab!

Our visit to Maker Station (by alaric)

As a member of two hack spaces (and co-founder, secretary, and treasurer of one), I couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit a local hack space during our visit to South Africa. A quick web search later and I found that Cape Town's hackspace is called Maker Station. I dropped them a message asking if I could drop by and say hi as an ambassador from the UK, and asking them to suggest a time - UK hack spaces tend to have an open evening sometime in the week when random people can turn up to look around and meet people; so I was expecting something like that, but didn't see a time advertised on the Web site. But they suggested I suggest a time, so I did.

If we'd planned this a bit better, we'd have brought stickers (a traditional hack space give-away gift) from Bristol and Cheltenham Hack Spaces, but we didn't - so, instead, Sarah painted a picture from each hack space:

For those not familiar with them, UK hack spaces tend to be run like a club or society - a constitution document of some kind sets out rules for people to become members, and for members to vote on a board who are in charge of making sure the space meets its legal obligations and controls the flow of money. Usually, members get unlimited access to the space and voting rights in exchange for a monthly membership fee (with some tools that use expensive consumables requiring extra usage fees on top to cover that). The monthly memberships go into a bank account, and the elected board choose to spend that on rent, insurance, electricity, broadband, consumables, and so on, and the money left over each month piles up until it's enough to buy a fancy new tool requested by the members. Most members have day jobs and hack on projects in their spare time, so hack spaces tend to be quiet during the day and busy in evenings and at weekends; and, as I mention above, there's usually an open evening every week for potential new members to come along and visit, which is also the day members come along to socialise, thereby ensuring there's a good population present to welcome new people. There are no paid staff; the board are all volunteers, and members are expected to unlock and lock up if they visit at a time when nobody else is around.

So I was quite interested to find out that Maker Station was different. We were met inside the entrance by Felix, one of the founders. The entrance led directly to a cafe area, with leaflets of hackerly interest lying around, and a range of drinks and crisps and stuff (including Maker Station logo biscuits they'd made in their own rocket oven!) for sale. The space is staffed and open during business hours; the two founders are there during the day as it's actually their day job, and they have two employees to help (the cost of living in South Africa is much lower than in the UK, which is what makes this practical).

Beyond the cafe was the hack space itself. Much of the space is divided into benches (or larger studios), which are either rented by the day in a sort of hot-desking arrangement:

...or dedicated to a single user who pays regularly for it, so has extensive tool and work-in-progress storage dedicated to them:

People normally used it during the day, but if people were still hacking when 6pm came, they'd keep it open in the evening as well. One user I spoke to there was making a commission for a client, suggesting that the member demographic was more people hacking on stuff for a living than evening hobbyists. Felix and his brother (the other founder) don't quite make enough to run the place from memberships alone; the shortfall is made up by them working on paid commissions of their own in the space. Felix showed us some current projects they were working on, an exhibit for a local science centre and a small wind tunnel for somebody experimenting with wind turbine designs:

I didn't get the impression there was quite the sense of community that UK hackspaces have, with their busy open evenings and highly decentralised governance; Felix said that he often found himself acting as a "broker" between people who wanted some skill and people who had it or who a good supplier was for something, while in the UK, such connections usually arise organically on the open evening, so I suggested he might like to set up a weekly social slot in the cafe (and maybe a wiki for sharing information like supplier lists, like we have at Cheltenham Hackspace).

I was very impressed by their facilities. A proper cafe! Lots of space! Many, many, tools, including a decent metal lathe, forge, foundry, and welding gear!

Interestingly, they didn't tend to go in for the stock UK hack space tools of laser cutters and 3D printers. It turns out that in Cape Town there are several suppliers who will do small-job CNC cutting and lasering and 3D printing at a reasonable price using high-end equipment, within easy travel of Maker Station. As far as I can tell, it's prohibitively expensive to get that sort of thing done in the UK other than in industrial quantities, which is why UK hack spaces end up buying their own equipment!

Felix seems to be really good at community outreach and education - something we're looking to expand at Cheltenham Hackspace, not to mention a speciality of Sarah's, so we were interested to hear about that. Here's a video of Felix giving a talk to students about prototyping. One thing that impressed me was that he runs things he calls "disassembly workshops"; take a pile of unwanted appliances, and unleash a bunch of children on them with screwdrivers (and some expert help) to tear them apart. This is fun in itself, and provides an opportunity to learn how the things you're taking apart work, as well as building skills in using the tools and working out how to get things to bits.

Once you have a pile of bits, depending on the age range and abilities, you can let the kids stick the bits together to make art to take home - or teach them electronics by wiring them up to do new things, maybe even so far as building robots out of the mechanical and electronic parts.

Here's some photos from a recent disassembly workshop they did: 1 2 3 4 5.

We enjoyed our visit to Maker Station. It was refreshing to see a different take on the usual hack space financial model, and interesting to see how the differing economics of South Africa affected what a hack space needed to be and could do. And Felix was inspiring as an educator and speaker! I'm keeping a close eye on his Twitter feed for good ideas to use in my own sci/tech outreach activities 🙂